The difference between Kindle and Google books?

[Rooferkev]

I can get both of these on my phone but when searching through the respective book stores of each, all the books are the same price, exactly the same! so whats the point? arn't they supposed to be in competition? and why are the books the same price as actual physical copies of the book? shouldn't they be cheaper for being a digital version?

 

[doogald]

I can get both of these on my phone but when searching through the respective book stores of each, all the books are the same price, exactly the same! so whats the point? arn't they supposed to be in competition? and why are the books the same price as actual physical copies of the book? shouldn't they be cheaper for being a digital version?

Almost all digital e-books are priced by the publisher - copyrights give them such monopolistic power. (Kindle initially priced all ebooks at $9.95, but when Apple opened the iBookstore they allowed publishers to set prices and those publishers refused to publish on Kindle if they did not get the same power, so Amazon changed the pricing.)

Also, almost every new release ebook is cheaper than a hardcover new release, and many ebooks remain cheaper than softcovers as well, or about the same price.

The point? The Kindle bookstore allows me to read on many more platforms than most other bookstores (I have a Kindle and cannot read Google books on the Kindle), though I suppose you could say the same about the Nook bookstore if you owned a Nook. I will say that the Android Kindle app is slightly better than the Google Books app, and much better on iOS, and Amazon tends to have more titles than Google. You may like the Google app and bookstore more. If so, go with that.

 

[NightAngel79]

amazon also has a bigger (better) selection of books than google... though B & N has them both beat